Tuesday, March 8, 2011

"Emotions as they Relate to Relationships"

Emotions are a tricky thing. We think we are ruled by them and I guess if you want to believe that then they will do just that. I instead believe that our emotions address us to come and teach us about ourselves. We all have emotions of all kinds and none of them are good or bad.  At times in my life, I swear I felt as though my emotions were going to jump out of my chest and choke me... no wonder I went into the food to change my state of consciousness. Now looking back, I was scared to death to even address those emotions I felt. For instance, rage was an emotion that I felt a lot of shame around. I felt, because of the rage that was in me, I couldn't possibly trust myself around anyone let alone myself. Even when I did get pregnant early on in my marriage, I hate to admit it but I hoped the pregnancy wouldn't stick. I wasn't sure I could handle having kids with this rage inside of me. I am soooo grateful that I don't feel that now and have healed from that awful emotion. I personally think it had a lot to do with the flour and sugar I was eating. Those foods were making me crazy.

It's funny, men wish women weren't so emotional and women wish men were more emotional. But look at how society treats each other as we address these emotions differently. Where in our society does someone say it's NOT ok to feel fear, loneliness or powerless? It's just what you feel. You don't have to react to it.. rather you take appropriate action when you feel it.  I know I have written about this before but I can't stress it enough to accept these feelings as ok. Especially men.

Since I recently have gone through a divorce myself, I realize and value men soo much more than I ever have before. Maybe that surprises you but regardless of what I have experienced, it doesn't change the fact that we together feel emotions and our emotions affect each other as we interact with one another. For instance, when we have wounds or unresolved emotions around a particular sex, it shows up as we interact. This is why it's vital that we do work in healing those parts or us so that we can attract healthiness into our future relationships. No one likes to have past garbage brought into new relationships.. but people do it all the time. I am currently not dating for this very fact. This is time for me to get clear with who I am and to heal from those wounds that have been inflicted on me as well as those wounds I have inflicted on others. See us women have a lot of support around us and it's socially acceptable for us to talk all day long about it. Men on the other hand, it's not widely acceptable to talk about emotions let alone have emotions. In cases of divorce especially when kids are involved, men feel deeply and typically have no one to really talk about it with.

From what I can tell a man's greatest fear in life is the fear of being a failure. Now realizing that, I see what damage I did in my marriage. I didn't know how to support him in a way that I could see past all this poor choices he was making. I couldn't allow myself to be vulnerable and trusting of him to provide emotionally, physically and so forth for me. I made it very difficult for him to succeed. This doesn't mean that because of my actions that he still didn't have personal responsibility but I can see how my lack of support didn't help.

Relationships take work just like anything out there. My relationship with food has taken work to clean up. For me, all relationships whether it be with food, a husband, children or family have emotions around it. I choose to always be aware what emotions come up as I travel through this thing called life and then allow those emotions to be my teacher.

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